


My Tongue Will Tell The Anger Of My Heart

by Valkyrien



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Foremost Among These Things Are Slit's Head And His Battered Sense Of Self, If A Lizard King Has An Existential Breakdown In The Wasteland Does Everyone Still Have To Die?, Multi, Out Here Everything Hurts, The Answer Is Yes - Some Still Die Just Not Everyone
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-13 17:16:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4530414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valkyrien/pseuds/Valkyrien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story is the result of this Mad Max Kinkmeme Prompt:</p>
<p>'Toast finds a passed out Slit in one the rigs compartments, while Capable is having a sweet conversation with Nux, Toast is restraining Slit, would most likely have to sit on him to keep him still. He would probably show off the boot to Max and pout and snarl for most of the trip.</p>
<p>Eventually either through something physically happening or mentally he realizes Immortan Joe is not a god and hops on the 'team Furiosa' rig, whilst giving heart eyes at Toast whilst the rest of the team giggle in the background.</p>
<p>his presence could change the ending or not ? up to the writer '</p>
<p>His presence changes things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Installment

**Author's Note:**

> Before I began writing the fill, I participated in a great deal of highly interesting on-thread discussion regarding the prompt, which can be viewed here:
> 
> http://madmaxkink.dreamwidth.org/450.html?thread=278722
> 
> I am Caps-Lock Anon.

  
  
  
    They're going into the storm - She thinks she can lose them all that way, the Imperatraitor, Slit can see it, but it won't work, it'll never work, because They aren't stopping but neither is anyone else.  
  
  
    Nux wouldn't slow down now, not this close, not when they're almost there, almost alongside, but Slit pounds on the roof anyway, urging his driver on, to fang it because this is their moment, letting him know Slit sees it, too.  
  
  
    Ace is by the Imperatraitor's side, demanding, and Slit doesn't know, doesn't think Ace knows what she's taken, what he and the others have helped steal and protect, but they're so close to level now that Nux can get a shot, if only Ace would move, and Slit can hear Nux shouting his own thoughts because there isn't time to drive and reload, there isn't time to waste a shot that won't reach Her anyway, and then Ace falls back, struck, and Nux takes the shot -  
  
  
    It's too late, doesn't find her, a snap of thwarted violence tearing from Slit's throat in frustration, but Slit's ready when they lurch towards the Rig, lance in his hand, awaited impact seizing him and -  
  
  
    They swerve in, Ace falls - is pushed, knocked away in a ribbon of red -   
  
  
    The tire's blown, they're falling back, can't keep level, can't keep after, and Nux can't correct course like this, but if they -  
  
  
    “We need counterweight - get the Blood Bag down the back!”  
  
  
    Yes, that's all the prompting Slit needs to abandon his perch and slitherslidestomp across the roof, across the hood to release the Blood Bag's wrists, unhook him and drag him back to help counter them, and it's not easy, it's not, dragging by chain alone, heaving him away without letting him fall, without overbalancing them both, without letting his bulk obscure Nux' line of sight any longer than can't be helped, and Slit is strong and his balance is solid, but it's not easy, it's an effort, and the Blood Bag isn't helping any of them except by continuing to breathe and fuel their driver.   
  
  
    Slit wonders briefly if a crazy feral Blood Bag like him even understands that the fuel he's providing is just as vital as the guzzoline in the tank below them, that it's just as central to propelling them all to glory. Maybe feral Blood Bags can go to Valhalla that way, maybe that's their path even if Slit's never seen one hooked up to a car like this, and so maybe their Blood Bag will be the first, earning it by fuelling their ride to glory.  
  
  
    They're at the edge of the storm now, about to plunge in, about to ride truly historic, and they need all the edge they can get, and maybe Slit's overcome by it, revels too hard too fast, because he's all but giddy with free-flowing aggression, turbo-charged with their imminent glory, and so he hoists the chain and snarlsnapgrins at the suspended Blood Bag.  
  
  
    Better discourage the feral behaviour that sent a War Boy plummeting off a cliff back at the Citadel before the Blood Bag was caged for using, because Slit does not have time to subdue the Blood Bag if it comes to that, not with everything else, not with the storm, not when they're this close to being eternal.  
  
  
    “Hey head - say bye-bye to the neck! Decapito!” he threatens, high and wild and gleefully grating, wrist-blade at the ready, and it doesn't matter whether the Blood Bag thinks he'll go through with it - Slit won't unless he has to, wouldn't compromise the car's fuel lines and won't compromise Nux' fuel line either unless he has no choice - Slit just needs the Blood Bag to cooperate, because he'll have no way of properly securing a Blood Bag this size to the lancer's perch and a struggling Blood Bag will be a very dangerous thing indeed.  
  
  
    “We're going in, Slit!” Nux shouts, and the split second distraction of registering it, looking up to check their position and brace for entry -   
  
  
    That's all it takes for the Blood Bag to grab his own chain and haul Slit down and off balance, forcing Slit into a forward roll off the roof and down to the perch, and Slit still has a grip on the chain and uses it to halt his momentum, one hand on the perch rail, but he doesn't have time to drag himself up again before the Blood Bag's tucking under and over and slamming his boot into Slit's face fast and hard.  
  
  
    And again.  
  
  
    And again.  
  
  
    And again.  
  
  
    And again.  
  
  
    Fifth time lucky Slit grabs at the Blood Bag's leg, his boot, wraps his free arm around and heaves to drag himself back up, his full weight behind it, fingers snagging into and between laces to twist a better hold, blood and sand choking his mouth and eyes and nose -  
  
  
    They're in the storm.  
  
  
    The Blood Bag thrashes but Slit won't be dislodged, clinging to boot and perch rail with arms and teeth and the vicious strength of fury and fear as he's torn over the sand and ground beneath them.  
  
  
    There's just enough time for him to feel an entirely unhelpful sense of vindication - he told Nux the Blood Bag would cause problems and now look, just look at this mess - when the Blood Bag twists and slams the other foot directly into the side of Slit's head, jarring, and Slit's grasp on the perch rail slips, still-extended wrist-blade catching.  
  
  
    Slit has only a second to realise that his cuff is snagged on one of his mostly-covered perch hooks, that the attached chain is tugging free and spooling out, before the Blood Bag does it again, free foot crashing into Slit's neck and jaw, and then the boot that is Slit's only real handhold slips off the Blood Bag's foot and Slit is pulled off in the violence of the Blood Bag's thrashing and dragged further by his own weight, only just managing to wind his cuffed arm around the hook-chain that's still unspooling to tether himself.  
  
  
    On this loveliest of days, he is not going to be left behind.  
  
  
    He's swept away and up, stringing out behind the car and overhead, flying through the storm clouds by the chain around his arm, and he can see the others, witnesses them fly right past him into Valhalla all shiny and chrome, devoured by fire in the Heavens, and that wouldn't be the worst way to go, except he's been kicked off his own damn car by a feral Blood Bag with nothing but a boot to show for it still clenched and wound up in his free hand and that was not the plan.  
  
  
    Slit's got more time left on his half-life than Nux does, nothing chewing at him quite so desperately yet, so maybe he's not as quick to be going, but that doesn't mean he'll accept dying like this if today is his day after all, dying with nothing to show, un-Witnessed, un-chromed, no choice, flung away from his perch, discarded by a feral Blood Bag Slit himself strapped to their hood to fuel their glorious ride.  
  
  
   He snaps back in an agonising line, spine screaming, flung and swept by the motions of the car still pulling him along beneath and the storm raging above and around him, strong enough to tear hard at the socket of his arm, and he can feel it all separating inside, can't reach forward with his free arm through the gales to relieve the strain on the other, can't see much of anything below, can only still feel that he's being pulled so Nux must still be driving, Blood Bag can't have gotten to him yet -   
  
  
    There's acceleration -   
  
  
    Slit's being torn apart in the wind and the slipstream of whatever his driver's doing, and he can feel his arm seperate at the same moment that the car swerves back into course below, sweeping Slit around and down and -  
  
  
    The chain's broken -  
  
  
    The chain's broken, Slit's flying free -  
  
  
    Straight into the side of something that partially crumples under and around him as what can't be forcedflung through is bent and scraped and pushed in by weight and wind, and Slit's head connects.  
  
  
    It's all red and dark in the After.

 

 

 


	2. Second Installment

 

  
  
    There's raw metal against his face. Against everything.  
  
  
    His skin is screaming.  
  
  
    He's too heavy, borne down by something pointy, pressing where his arm's come loose, where his neck is twisted.  
  
  
    It makes his rattled brain pound like amplified War Drums, but out of beat, blood throbbing through him everywhere, screeching in his ears.  
  
  
    “DON'T MOVE,” he hears above him, a shock of sound in the screaming, roaring through him like an engine un-tuned.  
  
  
    **_Move_** , he thinks.  
  
  
    He can't.  
  
  
    Chain links clattering stab at his eyes and his mouth is sealed shut like a slick burn-blister-edge when he tries to open it.  
  
  
    There's tugging on the arm still attached, he feels, jarring his head, shifting him.  
  
  
    Back in gear push-started he opens his eyes unseeing, rolls with it, bowls over the small, pointed, shrieking thing holding him down like metal, like metal ripping, a guttural roar of pain and anger forced out of him with the motion, clashing with the sharp, squalling tear of fury coming through bared teeth above him like nothing he's ever heard even Coma coax from the Axe.  
  
  
    It sears through him, violent and white-hot, blazing at the edges of his vision, chrome-reflection bright and hurting, blinding like the best part of an explosion biting at his eyes and taking chunks of light away with it that spatter all over like a bad wound leaking.  
  
  
    He takes a blow to the face and feels it catch hot on his stapled cheek, sharp fingers digging and gouging at his separated shoulder, clawing at his throat, and the bright-hurting thing is so quick, slams him over, grinds his face against hot raw metal again, staples squealing.  
  
  
    It blurs his sight even further, but now he's lying on the arm that won't lift right, isn't attached, something digging into his chest, his throat, and he scrabbles at it with his other hand, blood-slick, not enough air, and blinks hard, harder against the bright, burning jagged outline above him.  
  
  
    He sees, too late, blood and sweat clearing his eyes, and it can't be, shouldn't be, but it can't be anything else because what else could be so terribly chrome-bright, so shiny-polished?  
  
  
    It's a Breeder, one of the Immortan's stolen chrome Treasures, kneeling on Slit's chest choking his life away, screaming murder more perfectly discordant and compelling than Coma's strings ever have.  
  
  
    There's a red smear on her face, he realises.  
  
  
    Not a hand laid on 'em, his leaking brain supplies, and he stopped moving the very instant he saw what she is, as soon as he knew, but now he shrinks away, hard recoil like a gun gone off, frozen in terror, still as can be.  
  
  
    Holds what little breath she's leaving him even though his lungs are beginning to ache bloody like everything else inside-out him.  
  
  
    He touched her before he knew, fought her as best he could damaged and pulled-apart as he is, he touched her -   
  
  
    There's commotion, he hardly hears what, words, closes his eyes to block the sight of her.  
  
  
    There's no blocking ears and she screams, still, screams and screams.  
  
  
    He can't undo putting hands on what isn't his by not laying eyes on her, but he also can't breathe with the thought of the blood on her face, the way he threw her off him when he didn't Know.  
  
  
    “World-Killer - ”  
  
  
    “War Boy - ”  
  
  
    - he hears, other voices, his chain is twisted around both arms, her weight lifts away, and if he weren't so banged-up and wrecked he'd have noticed how slight it was, barely weight at all, more like a half-grown Pup than anything -   
  
  
    Air rasps back into his chest, and then he's dragged half-up, half-tumbling out of his hide, grasped roughly, thrown down, mostly onto sand, told,  
  
  
    “Look at me, War Boy!”  
  
  
    Behind and around, he hears -   
  
  
    “ - touch you?”  
  
  
    He hears -   
  
  
    “ - his blood, not mine.”  
  
  
    He hears -   
  
  
    “ - leave him, he's half-dead already!”  
  
  
   He's not.  
  
  
    He's stronger than most War Boys, healthier, too, has more time left - he's a mess right now, slam-dents and drag-wounds and a loose arm torn half out-off, but he's not half-dead.  
  
  
    “That's my boot,” he hears, gruff and rough, and he opens his eyes to stare at the Blood Bag in disbelief.  
  
  


 


	3. Third Installment

  
  
  
    His lunge towards the bastard feral Blood Bag is by no means half-hearted, but he only gets as far as to his own knees through the combination of drag-back on his chained arms, and the Imperatraitor's boot planting squarely in the centre of his chest and cracking the outraged howl coming from it.  
  
  
    “Stay down!” Furiosa orders, but the Blood Bag is bending in to snatch up the dusty boot lying next to Slit - and he has no memory of that being anywhere near him just before, both his hands were free, maybe it tumbled out of his hidey-hole when he was pulled down? - and Slit can't help snapping and snarling at him, voice broken when he shouts,  
  
  
    “I'll really kill you this time, I will!”  
  
  
    “This time?” penetrates the haze of rage, Furiosa's voice, suspicious, and Blood Bag says nothing but then there's a chorus of bright, sheer, Shiny voices, layering into and over one another like shoddy welding -  
  
  
    “ - can't hold him!”  
  
  
    “ - hurt us - they're scared - ”  
  
  
    “ - was in the War Party shooting at us, just like the rest!”  
  
  
    It's the angry choking-Shiny, accusing him, accusing Slit of trying to shoot them, and he's so shocked - not that he believes any of them could tell one War Boy from the next, what do Shiny High-Lives know about that - don't they know the orders? Don't they know what they are? Don't they understand that the War Parties are sent for them because they are the Immortan's most precious resource, that they're Treasures that need protecting and retrieving before harm comes to them out here in the waste?  
  
  
    “Didn't never!” he cries, horrified, because he followed orders, him and Nux both, stayed their hands, only lances Slit threw were to keep the Rig Buzzard-free because Buzzards didn't have any orders from anywhere they were just attacking and that could have damaged the Treasures, no glory to be got if that happened,  
  
  
    “Got the Buzzards off your back - not stupid, can't lance the Rig with Treasures stowed - damage 'em, against orders - ” he won't look up at the Shinies dragging his chain, he won't, but he'll spit at Furiosa -   
  
  
    “Nux tried to shoot you, but Ace wouldn' move - tire blew an' Blood Bag threw me off our rig - he's feral, can't trust him - shouldn' be near 'em!”  
  
  
    Slit's glad to see the twist of pain on her traitoring face when he mentions Ace, the flicker of wariness from the corner of her eye at the un-muzzled Blood Bag beside her.  
  
  
    “Get him too?” Slit demands, not expecting an answer but directing all his venom at the bastard feral anyway,  
  
  
    “That why she's lettin' ya live?”  
  
  
    “Fool, what's he talking about?” Furiosa snaps at the feral, and it seems to startle him into rumbling a half-reply, looking at no one in particular but in Slit's general direction,  
  
  
   “Driver. Chained to me. Threw him out.”  
  
  
    Whatever it means, and Slit is able to form only the barest picture of what's happened from the few rasping words, Furiosa seems to understand, and she scowls down at Slit.  
  
  
    Above-behind him a soft-hard Shiny voice whispers,  
  
  
    “Hoisted by their own petard - ” which is nonsense, or at least Slit's fairly sure it's nonsense because it doesn't make the slightest bit of sense, and then a louder Shiny voice, sad, like it's realised something,  
  
  
    “His partner - the one we threw out - ” And then an interrupting growl, choking-Shiny, and Slit's yanked onto the ground again, on his back and shoulder so he can't help but see them, and -   
  
  
    They are glorious. They seem to soar into the sky from where Slit lies, their brightness louder and angrier than the sun, cutting at its edges and making it bleed into theirs. They shine like nothing Slit's ever seen, more chrome than chrome itself...  
  


 

 


	4. Fourth Installment

  
  
  
    “How many more are there on this thing?” one screeches, a blur of dark-slicks like oil and guzzoline pooling together, and then the Imperatraitor, telling the know-nothing Shiny,  
  
  
    “This rig was designed for maintenance under fire, there's a whole system of hatches and bolt-holes like the one you hid in, they'd know them all!”  
  
  
    Her anger doesn't seem to be directed at the Shiny but at everything, the frustration of a run gone wrong, of a Rig infested by those whose efforts built it so well it can be turned on her because they know it the way she does, and Slit bares his teeth at her in triumph as the white-brightest Shiny hisses,  
  
  
    “Like an infestation - maggots in a dead thing, have to burn them out...” She spits at Slit and it misses and he wishes it hadn't and then feels angry for it.  
  
  
    Slit won't respond to any of the Treasures - it's not his place - don't look, don't touch - but the one with soldering-spark hair coiled around her like overheated loose copper wiring from gutted mechanicals insists,  
  
  
    “No burning - no unnecessary killing! We agreed - Angharad wouldn't have wanted it!”  
  
  
    “Angharad is dead,” snaps the Shiny who choked him, her hair a jagged crown slicing through the white thing around her face, still blood-smeared,  
  
  
    “And this one fought.”  
  
  
    Slit bites down hard on his tongue to keep from protesting - he didn't know, he didn't, wouldn't have raised a hand if he had, they're so delicate, orders were not to touch, just recover, and he couldn't see straight, had no idea - and then he realises that she must be referring to another Shiny. A dead Shiny, Treasure that can't be recovered now.  
  
  
    But...  
  
  
    One of them died? How? Not by Slit's hand - not by any War Boy's hand, he can't think, none of them would dare, they'd take a bullet first, orders were to bring back the Treasures in one piece, safe, intact, no glory to be had going against the orders, who would have -   
  
  
    “One died?” Slit demands, staring straight into Furiosa's face, and the Imperator's face is a storm, but it's the smallest Shiny who shrieks, her voice a raging sliver of sound,  
  
  
    “Angharad! Angharad died and what do you care - why would any of you care, you half-life smegs, he killed her himself - ”  
  
  
    The white-brightest Shiny pulls the shrieker out of her raging, pulls her into a chokehold - no, that's wrong, it's a - Slit knows this word - holding her, it's a - it's a something, to quiet, to reassure, to calm?   
  
  
    The shriek peters out into plaintive cries, smothered in the white-bright solid-cloud skin of the Shiny who spat at him, and the oil-slick little Shiny shivers and shakes like she's in the clutches of a night fever except the sun is high and sharp-cutting in the sky, and it's because one of them is dead, one of them is dead and it wasn't a War Boy did it, it was -   
  
  
    “You let one of them die!” Slit growls at Furiosa,  
  
  
    “Stole them and can't even keep them safe!”  
  
  
    “Angharad died putting herself between a bullet and Furiosa, she died for all of us,” the red-wired Shiny says, hard but quivering,  
  
  
    “Joe crushed her under his wheels. She was his favourite and he killed her. We are not things - we do not belong to him, and we are not going back.”  
  
  
    “Breeding stock, we were to him, Angharad his favourite carrying a child and he ran right over her when she fell,” spits the dead-eyed Shiny who choked him.  
  
  
    It feels like she's still choking him.  
  
  
    Over his head the Shinies crow, vicious and furious, spitting fire, explosive, deciding his fate.  
  
  
    “Broken half-life serving a bastard World-Killer - let's leave him here - ”  
  
  
    “Angharad - ”  
  
  
    “Like the last one - leave him, toss him out, they're all crazy smegs - ”  
  
  
    “You let one of them die - you're riding with a feral Blood Bag crazier than any War Boy,” Slit accuses Furiosa, kneeling up as far as the Shinies will let him, chest heaving with the pain of pressing against his bonds,  
  
  
    “I'm not broken and I've got time left - stick my arm back and I can fight, I'll lance for you - chain me to the Rig if you like - ” he can see she'd rather shoot him, that all that's keeping him alive is the will of a dead Treasure who didn't want killing, and he snarls a challenge at the Imperatraitor who took what doesn't belong to her and has already wasted one of them,  
  
  
    “Orders were, not a hand laid on 'em - I won't let any more die. Me first. They're all coming for you anyway, you got no chance - least when they catch you, he'll get most of 'em back!”  
  
  
    “You'd die protecting us, just so the old bastard can get us back alive?” the red-wired Shiny asks him, sounding strange, like she's hurt, like she's angry, and Slit doesn't understand why she's asking, he just explained, he just said all that, what could possibly be unclear?  
  
  
    “Put my arm back on, chain me to the Rig, I'll help keep 'em alive long enough,” he grates, refusing to meet the shining Shiny eyes, keeping his on the Imperatraitor's, and the red-wired Shiny's voice goes soft, her shadow swallows him because she's too close now, and she says,  
  
  
    “He means it - he wouldn't hurt us,” but she's not talking to him, she's trying to convince Furiosa, and she sounds sad, as if she's not happy that Slit would rather die than damage them, rather die than disobey if he can't actively bring them back himself.  
  
  
    “You got no crew,” Slit pushes, growls, seeing Furiosa consider, throws himself forward as far as he can,  
  
  
    “You trust a feral to help protect them!”  
  
  
    “He was a prisoner too,” the Shiny choker snaps,  
  
  
    “He's running away from that just like us - only place you want to go is back to die for that filthy old liar!”  
  
  
    “ _I don't have a choice!_ ” Slit roars, turning, meeting her dead cold eyes, not a challenge, not something he has a word for - she needs to understand, he thinks, desperate - his death has to matter, it has to, this is all he can do, there's nothing else, there's nowhere else, what else can he -   
  
  
    “Neither did we,” she hisses, burning so much brighter than he's ever seen anything, and the red-wired Shiny's voice cuts through, loud, angry, sad, violent,  
  
  
    “But we do now, and we'd rather die free out here than go back. We are not going back to be his things. We are not things, none of us - not even you. You can do more than die for someone who won't even care.”  
  
  
    Her words don't make sense, so he turns to Furiosa again, telling her,  
  
  
    “Can't trust the feral. You've already wasted one of 'em - can't use damaged Treasures for anything. Let me help keep them alive.”  
  
  
    Furiosa says nothing. Stares at him.  
  
  
    Blood Bag Bastard says nothing. Stares at something that isn't Slit and probably isn't even there.  
  
  
    The Shinies talk, all over everything.  
  
  
    “ - can't trust him - ”  
  
  
    “ - not things - ”  
  
  
    “ - alive - ”  
  
  
    “ - Green Place - ”  
  
  
    The voice of the Shiny-choker rises above, towards Furiosa,  
  
  
    “Put his arm right, chain him too far to reach you. He won't touch us - doesn't dare. Fool's done more already, not knowing. Probably die before we get to the Green Place all on his own, a damaged half-life like this.”  
  
  
    The guzzoline sliver Shiny whispers,  
  
  
    “Toast, he hurt you,” and Slit's chain jangles when Shiny-choker moves and dismisses,  
  
  
    “Too struck-stupid to know me. Stopped soon as he did. I'm fine.”  
  
  
    The relief of it settles in Slit's throat like another staple, pinching him shut in a place that's open and bleeding, and his head sags for a moment with it.  
  
  
    “He'll follow orders,” the red-wired Shiny says, soft-sad over him like grease slicking parts that won't slip right,  
  
  
    “It's all they know. All they have. They're prisoners, too.”

 

 

 


	5. Fifth Installment

  
  
  
    Slit doesn't speak, doesn't correct her - Shinies aren't prisoners, they're Treasures, how can they not know?  
  
  
    Furiosa watches Slit, and Slit stares back.  
  
  
    She nods.  
  
  
    “We'll set his arm and chain him to the Rig,” she decides, then leans in to put her boot on Slit's chest again,  
  
  
    “Try anything, I'll shred you myself.”  
  
  
    Slit holds her gaze.  
  
  
    She pushes away from him, turns, grabs his chain from the Shinies, unwinds his arms, and the Blood Bag helps.  
  
  
    Slit forces himself to hold still, not to give into the temptation to slam his good elbow right back into the side of the Bastard Blood Bag's head.  
  
  
    Hands on his chain, on his loose arm, pulling up, bigger hands on his shoulders, holding him steady.  
  
  
    The snap-crack put-right is quick, but it hurts as bad as the arm being pulled loose did, and Slit tips forward, muffling the howl of pain in the back of his throat by sinking his teeth into his lip.  
  
  
    He can feel everything blur again, sweat-shaking through it, and his breathing is loud and harsh through the metal dripping down his chin.  
  
  
    “Get up,” Furiosa orders, and he staggers to his feet blindly, lets himself be pulled to the side of the Rig's cabin, slammed against the door as the Treasures rush to the other side and file in.  
  
  
    Good. He doesn't want to touch them. Bad enough one of them's already marked with his blood.  
  
  
    Dirty and rust-flecked over something too shiny even to be called chrome.  
  
  
    “Get on the rail,” Furiosa tells him, like he's too stupid to understand, and he jumps up once he can feel she's slackened the chain enough, lets her secure it to the side of the Rig, giving him enough that he can twist his good arm through the door into the cabin to hold on better, enough that he can move to take bullets for the Treasures inside if he has to.  
  
  
    “If you fall off, we'll drag you dead,” Furiosa cautions, once he's secured, and he looks at her.  
  
  
    “I know,” he snarls, because Slit is not stupid. Why would they stop just to pull him back up?  
  
  
    “So don't fall,” Shiny-choker grates, right beside his ear, and he turns his head, startled.  
  
  
    She's sitting right there. Right beside him. If she leans into the door at all she'll be right up against his good arm. There is a bag of bullets and guns on her lap, and her eyes are still dead-cold, still angry, but all he can see is his blood on her face.  
  
  
    She's so small.  
  
  
    “Lancers don't fall,” he tells her, amazed at his own nerve talking back to her, but maybe it's okay because maybe she doesn't know, and his pride is stung - he's never fallen off a perch a day in his half-life -   
  
  
    She sneers. It's like the sun swallowing the world up.  
  
  
    “Then how did you end up here?”  
  
  
    “Bastard feral Blood Bag threw me off our car when I was moving him,” Slit replies, tearing his eyes away from her, voice rough and half-swallowed, turning his face away.  
  
  
    He hears Furiosa's door, hears her start up the Rig.  
  
  
    “Were you trying to kill him?” the Shiny-choker asks, like it's an accusation, and Slit doesn't like this, how she's talking to him like she wants to keep doing it, like it's alright for something like her to just talk to something like him.  
  
  
    “No. Moving him down the back for counterweight. Our front tire blew. Couldn't kill him, my driver needed his fuel,” he tells her, awkward, too hot, mouth aching, hoping she won't ask for more than that, hating it, can't turn away any more than he already has, doesn't want to look at her and see his blood on her face like she doesn't care that it's still there.  
  
  
    Proof that he touched her.  
  
  
    “You mean his blood,” the Shiny says, again like she's accusing him, and maybe she doesn't know how Blood Bags work either but that's not Slit's fault, it wasn't even his idea to bring the Bastard feral!  
  
  
   Slit makes a sound in response to confirm, hoping that now the Rig's moving she'll stop talking to him.  
  
  
    “What for?” she pushes, and Slit slams his temple into the cabin door, not hard enough to really do anything except release some of the tension in his jarred, pulsing head, and he grits his teeth.  
  
  
    “Driver needed a top-up. Can't do war if you can't stand. Blood helps,” he responds, adjusting his grip on the cabin rail, re-distributing his weight on his feet.  
  
  
    “So you brought the Fool for that, on your rig?” she demands, and then before Slit can heave up an answer she spits,  
  
  
    “Stupid.”  
  
  
    “'s what I said,” Slit mumbles dully, giving up hope that she'll leave him be,  
  
  
    “Still came closest to catching you. Almost worked. Guess Nux went out chrome as you like, 's why we did it. Wish I could've Witnessed him. Feral wouldn't know to.”  
  
  
    He doesn't think she cares to listen, why should she, he's just tired and in pain and his eyes are closed as his temple grinds into the metal of the door, and she was the one who talked and talked, and -  
  
  
    Something cool and wet and softer than anything Slit's ever felt before slides across his cheek, over the side of his bleeding mouth, and he startles right out of his skin, locks up against the cabin door, eyes wide, not enough air -   
  
  
    The Shiny-choker has a wet piece of white in one hand, rust-soaked at the edge, her face hard and determined and angry and glorious, too bright, too close, and there's no more blood on her face and Slit is so glad, so glad the proof is gone, now no one will ever know -   
  
  
    “Hold still, Stupid,” she commands, like that's his name, and he doesn't care, can't care, has no room for caring, because the way she cleans the blood off the rest of his face isn't half as rough as her voice, still softer than anything Slit knows -   
  
  
    “Still ugly, but now we can tell,” she says with a shrug, putting away the now blood-rusted white thing, then narrows her eyes at him critically.  
  
  
    “If I give you water, you'll drink it,” she declares, in no way a question, and he shrinks from it - no, absolutely not, he doesn't need it, he's not addicted, she can't get him that way -   
  
  
    “You will,” she repeats, insistent and fierce, and his legs are weak - why are they weak when they're the least-wrecked bits of him?  
  
  
    “You're all banged up. Running on empty. Can't be a shield if you die from that first. Head's a mess too - that'll kill you quick and sad if you won't drink,” she threatens, and Slit chews on his torn lip to keep in the words, and she reaches out and pinches his cheek with sharp, bare fingers.  
  
  
    He's shocked enough that he gapes at her.  
  
  
    “Stop that!” she orders,  
  
  
    “Didn't clean you up for you to bite yourself bloody again! Stupid. Drink this.”  
  
  
    It's a good thing his mouth is still stunned-slack and open because otherwise she'd crack his teeth jamming the aqua-skin past his lips and tilting it mercilessly - if he doesn't swallow he'll choke, he knows, and she must too, the Shiny-choker, maybe that's why she's doing it - but she snaps,  
  
  
    “Swallow it, Stupid! Can't waste it!”  
  
  
    - she's not trying to kill him, not trying to choke him, he'll choke himself if he doesn't obey her -   
  
  
    It's easier to do it, knowing that, easier not to squirm, easier to close his eyes and let her open his rusted-shut throat, like she's filling up his radiator so he'll run smoother -   
  
  
    She pulls it away, not as roughly as he could stand, and it makes it hurt more.  
  
  
    His lip snags, and she swipes at it.  
  
  
    It's not really a blow - not like when he was struck before - but like she's wiping - so he did good, then, it wasn't to punish -  
  
  
    Behind her, a soft shining voice says,  
  
  
    “Toast, leave him, what are you - ”  
  
  
    The Shiny-choker doesn't wait for the rest, must know what it'll be, because she snaps without looking back, eyes still fixed on Slit's,  
  
  
    “You clean a weapon before you stow it or it's no good when you need it.”  
  
  
    Slit swallows even though there's nothing left in his mouth anymore, watches her wipe her hands on the fluttery bit of white she used before, watches her stow away the aqua-skin, and understands.  
  
  
    She knows what he's for and how to use him better than the rest, maybe as well as the Imperatraitor, but she's bothering to do it. Smart. Fierce, smart, Shiny-choker.  
  
  
    “Tell me if you need more,” she demands, her eyes cold and dead and hard and swallowing the world.  
  
  
    Slit isn't sure whether she knows that he'd rather bite off his own tongue.  
  
  
    Maybe she does.  
  
  
    After all, this one, this one with the cold, hard eyes, sharp fingers, sharper mouth, sorting bullets now she's put Slit away good -   
  
  
    She's clever. She knows what he's for.  
  


 

 


	6. Sixth Installment

 

  
  
   There's no talking, for a little while, and Slit just hangs on and breathes and keeps his eyes on the waste, watching like he's always been used to, for anything at all.  
  
  
   By his side, inside, he can hear Her, the Shiny-choker, sorting bullets.  
  
  
   Slit doesn't know how she knows to, when the Shinies seem to know so little that's real and useful, but she must know or Furiosa would not be allowing it. She may be a traitor, but she was an Imperator, she knows guns, she'd know better than to let a Shiny who doesn't count them, touch them.  
  
  
   Then again... Furiosa said nothing when the Shiny-choker wiped Slit's face, gave him water, put him away just like a weapon, like she said.  
  
  
   Maybe Furiosa doesn't care about the Treasures getting dirty, touching what shouldn't be touching them, what they maybe don't understand right.  
  
  
   Slit doesn't watch, but he can hear it, hear the bullets twinkle-tinkling, scrape of guns in their pile. It's restful, makes him think of wrenches over nuts and bolts on a quiet night in the garages, Nux tinkering while Slit builds lances. No lancer worth his name doesn't build his own.  
  
  
   Do the Shinies even know what a lancer is? Slit can't help but wonder. The Shiny-choker seems to know better than the others, or maybe just enough to know some, but if she knows guns enough to sort bullets, maybe she knows other things like that? Even if she doesn't maybe understand lancing proper, maybe she could understand bombs?  
  
  
   There's movement in the cabin, the red-wired Shiny says,  
  
  
   “I'm going back up.”  
  
  
   Slit squeezes his eyes shut against what he knows is coming -  
  
  
   “ - again, what for - ”  
  
  
   “ - nothing up there - ”  
  
  
   “ - still need someone back - ”  
  
  
   Furiosa cuts across the Shiny voices, not harsh but firm, used to giving orders,  
  
  
   “Take a gun, come back down when it gets dark.”  
  
  
   Slit turns his head enough to see that the red-wired Shiny takes this for permission, that the Shiny-choker meticulously loads the smallest gun in the pile and hands it over to her, how the red-wired Shiny leans into the Shiny-choker to -  
  
  
   To kiss her on the cheek. To thank her.  
  
  
   Slit tears his gaze away and sets his teeth, deliberate, not chewing on his ragged lip or the scars thickening his cheeks on both sides. He knows that one, at least. Knows what it can be, anyway.  
  
  
   He can hear the red-wired Shiny climb out of the cabin on the side Slit isn't chained to, hears her make her way up the Rig, towards the back. He can hear the Shiny-choker shift, like she's about to follow.  
  
  
   “Give her time,” Furiosa orders, like she heard it too, maybe she was watching, and Slit thinks maybe this is what happened before, when they found him - one Shiny went up, another followed and happened to see him.  
  
  
   He wasn't well-hidden. Wasn't hidden much at all, he doesn't think, doesn't remember hiding, just falling, slamming into nothing too hard.  
  
  
   That must have been it, he thinks. But now there's nothing up there except being alone, and the Shinies don't seem to want that much. Even Pups don't cling the way the Shinies do to each other.  
  
  
   Must not know any better, soft as they are. Slit can't imagine anyone teaching these living-Chrome sun-slivers not to cling the way the Pups are taught.  
  
  
   Shiny-choker settles back into her seat, Slit hears, if he strains hard enough he thinks maybe he could feel it, the way she moved, just the other side of the metal between them, but she's so light - like a wisp of dry snake-skin, light shines right through her... Maybe from her.  
  
  
   If Slit edges forward a little, testing the chain, it's just for that. He's not trying to watch her count her bullets. He's not trying to watch how she does it so he can see whether she really knows them. He's just testing the chain, slipped into his cuff still, cuff bitten into his wrist. If he pokes at it he can tell it needs fixing, no wonder the way it's been dragged at - the way Slit's been dragged at.  
  
  
   Slit's a lancer so he doesn't mind the perch, it's what he knows, what he's used to, but the cuff needs fixing and he's got tools in his pockets and there's nothing behind or around them for miles and he's running empty after earlier, after waking up under -  
  
  
   If Slit could reach his tools and see to fix his cuff, he wouldn't have to think about that. There'd be other sounds like fixing, like the garage on good nights, to keep him steady, keep him focused.  
  
  
   He shifts again, feeling all around his cuff to try and think what needs repairing, how he could maybe do that if he can get to his tools later, and the Shiny-choker says,  
  
  
   “Hold on tight, Stupid,” like he doesn't know what he's doing, and he speaks before thinking, hissing,  
  
  
   “I am - don't need both arms for that!”  
  
  
   Looks right at her.  
  
  
   She's much too close.  
  
  
   Her eyes are - are -  
  
  
   She blinks, and it helps, but not much. He looks away again.  
  
  
   “You sure?” she asks, like she's mocking him,  
  
  
   “Not still thinking about dying? You'd go right under the wheels.”  
  
  
   Her voice lowers, goes very cold and small, like it hurts.  
  
  
   “Angharad went under the wheels.”  
  
  
   Slit doesn't want to respond, but maybe she doesn't want him to really, because she makes the bullets tinkle and then she says,  
  
  
   “But I suppose being dragged-dead because you were too Stupid to hold on isn't good enough, is it?”  
  
  
   She sounds like she's mocking him again, but angrier, harder, and Slit keeps his eyes and face turned away from her, but he says, when she doesn't tinkle the bullets again, like she's waiting, he says, and she gave him water so his voice should work but it's rougher than usual,  
  
  
   “That's not my name. I'm not Stupid.”  
  
  
   She says nothing at all.  
  
  
   The bullets are still.  
  
  
   The Rig rumbles and the wind whistles and the Shinies left over are all silent.  
  
  
   “Then what's your name?” she asks, and it's different somehow, so he tips his head forward to almost spy her just at the edge where she doesn't blind him all at once, and he tells her because it doesn't matter but it'd be another thing the Shinies could Know.  
  
  
   “I'm Slit.”  
  
  
   Her teeth bare at him for just a moment.  
  
  
   “You are,” she agrees, like she Knew all along, and then she asks, like he's still Stupid to her,  
  
  
   “But did you do it yourself?”  
  
  
   Her pointed finger touches just there at the edge of one of his stapled-shut scars and he flinches but it just makes her nail catch, makes it dig, and those edges are sharp -  
  
  
   She takes her hand away again, lets him breathe.  
  
  
   “Some,” he tells her, because he thinks maybe that's what she's after to be told, but it makes her look even angrier, even colder, brighter.  
  
  
   “Stupid,” she snarls, and then she turns away again.  
  
  
   The bullets tinkle sweet-metallic and the Rig rumbles on, and Slit pulls his cuff out of his wrist a little bit every time he wants to look anywhere that isn't the waste.  
  
  


 


	7. Seventh Installment

  
  
    The light's different now, Slit notices, because that's all there is to notice out here, because there's nothing out here except traitors and ferals and shiny Shinies too chrome to bear.  
  
  
    Even they seem tired with all their shining, the two who are not red-wired and whom he has not touched. Who haven't choked him. The shrieker and the spitter. They're all curled up, like Pups, and sighing, soft and quiet, to each other. Sad. Still. For the Treasure who died, Slit thinks, it must be, unless they're just as exhausted by themselves as he is by them by now.  
  
  
    Angharad, the Shinies call her, the Treasure who died, using a word he doesn't understand even though Slit's trying his hardest not to listen to them, not to do anything except watch the waste and wait until he's put himself back together again, all the nuts and bolts tight as they should be...  
  
  
    Full-lives don't run empty like half-lives do, Slit knows, but maybe it takes an awful lot more to shine so bright and full, maybe they need more fuel to stay as chrome as they are, like slices of the sun itself? Slit thinks it must do, that must be it, how else could a half-life like him keep going after wrecking when they start stalling after a few hours of just sitting in the War Rig? It can't just be soft living doing it.  
  
  
    The Shiny-choker, though... She's steady and running smooth right next to him, and Slit wonders if maybe she Knows bullets and things because she didn't always live soft, wasn't always Treasure.  
  
  
    Maybe that's how she knew to fight him, before he Knew her.  
  
  
    Slit wonders who would have ever shown her to fight even a little bit, like Pups scraping and pulling at each other, when she is what she is - who would ever want to damage her, scratch up living-chrome.  
  
  
    It'd be as stupid as exploding a perfect engine. Who would be that stupid?  
  
  
    It's been a while since the bullets tinkled with her counting, but Slit can see the Shiny-choker still has the bag close, that her hands are slippy-sliding over the bullets inside, the ones she hasn't loaded into what guns they have yet.  
  
  
    It reminds Slit of the way Nux fiddles with his wrenches when he has nothing to busy his hands with, reminds him of the way he himself hoards bullets. Slit stockpiles them whenever he can, stores them in pockets deep in his trousers. Even if he can't always lay hands on a gun, bullets are useful, every lancer knows. You can use what's inside, in a pinch, if you've got a few other things too.  
  
  
    Slit has lots of things on him like that, not secret just useful. Not hidden, just... not told anyone.  
  
  
    Like his broken cuff, the blade there - no one seems to have noticed he's got that still. No one's tried to take it from him. The Bastard feral Blood Bag's seen the blade it contains and said nothing when he and Furiosa chained Slit even though they used the chain still attached there. Slit thinks they can't have noticed or they'd have taken it.   
  
  
    There'd be no reason to trust him with it, even broken as it is, in need of repairs to work right again. He's not going to hurt the Treasures - the idea makes his head pound even harder than it already does, and Slit won't think about how it's still better than it was before She made him drink, put him away - but Furiosa can't know for sure that Slit wouldn't go for her or the Blood Bag if he got the chance.  
  
  
    Still, they've chained him so he can't reach. Probably they'll be careful not to give him the chance.  
  
  
    Smart.  
  
  
    Slit wouldn't try, if they did - Slit doesn't trust the Shiny-choker to Know not to be too close again, and if she got in the way -   
  
  
    If he bleeds on her, she can wipe that off, even if she doesn't seem to care about doing it quick enough.  
  
  
    If Slit made her bleed, if she got in the way if he went for the feral - and Slit's trying to ignore him because even thinking about him makes Slit's teeth itch to sink into his neck for throwing Slit off his own car, for what he must have done to Nux and not even Witnessed him for - or Furiosa...  
  
  
    Nux is always the one beating himself up over his failures, Slit tends to take a beating when he's the one doing the failing, but if Slit made the Shiny-choker bleed if she doesn't Know not to get in the way again with Slit sharpened up and ready...  
  
  
    Can't risk that.  
  
  
    Won't survive that beating.  
  
  
    Beside him, he can hear her sigh, too, and he twitches a look to catch where her hands put the bag. Tired, he thinks, she's tired, and it'll be safer once she curls into the other Shinies, as far away from Slit as she can get inside the cabin without pushing across the others.  
  
  
    Slit hears her rustling, moving away, that soft white thing on her head, around her neck, but he doesn't look, just stretches his free arm as much as he can and anchors himself with the other more securely on the -   
  
  
    Warm and soft, brushing against his skin, unexpected, like it means to settle there -   
  
  
    Slit flinches away, whips his head to the side so he can see, see that she didn't move closer to the pile of Treasures already curled up and soft-over-soft, she moved, she -   
  
  
    Right up against where he was, where he is, and there isn't another hand-hold unless he twists all the way around and then he won't be able to see -   
  
  
    Slit can't see anyway, nothing but her eyes, she's staring right at him, frowning like he did something wrong, but she was the one - !  
  
  
    “Thought I told you to hold on, Stupid,” she says, but not - not angry - just - Slit doesn't have that word, is there one? There has to be a word for how she sounds like she's tired because Slit disobeyed her, just tired, not angry -   
  
  
    “I was!” he manages to force past the shock - did she not feel it, then? How she was leaning on him when he moved to hold on better because surely she'd go the other way? She must have felt that! -  
  
  
    “Are you holding on to anything?” she snaps, like she didn't even hear him, leaning right up so close she could bite him if she wanted, and -   
  
  
    No, Slit isn't, he's balancing on the rail with one knee braced against an edge, hands splayed flat and tense over the door as far away from her as they can get without interfering with his balance or making him snap back to be dragged off, and maybe that's not what she told him to do, but she's the one who got so close Slit had to -  
  
  
    She growls, like a pit-challenge, and then she launches herself half out of the window, grabbing at the arm he's been using to hold on right, the one that isn't stitching back on, hauling at him -   
  
  
    She doesn't have Slit's balance, she's going to fall, they're both going to -  
  
  
    She's no counterweight at all, tiny, chrome-crazy in her rage at being disobeyed, and she's spitting -   
  
  
    “What are you doing!”  
  
  
    Like it's Slit's fault - like she isn't kami-crazy looking to waste them both! Slit didn't even know Treasures could BE kami-crazy, but this one - !  
  
  
    “What are YOU doing?!” he hisses, rough, wild, terrified, but her sharp little fingers are drawing blood on his arm and there's nowhere for him to go but down, and she'll go down too -   
  
  
    Slit shifts his feet back and braces against the side of the Rig, coiling his bad arm around his chain to eat up the slack that'll drag him under if he falls, and tears his other arm away from the spit-raging kami-crazy blood-shining Treasure -  
  
  
    She doesn't have the balance, the practice, to pull herself back up, back in - her legs weren't braced, a Pup's mistake - she tips too far -   
  
  
    Distantly, Slit hears Furiosa.  
  
  
   Distantly, Slit thinks he hears the other two Shinies in the cabin, startled out of their sad softness by this one's choking fury, realising that she's about to fall -   
  
  
    She isn't.  
  
  
    Slit prays and prays for Blood Bag or Furiosa to shoot him dead for doing this so he won't have to know he did it for longer than it takes to do it, and reaches up with the arm she's ripped up like making space for rivets -   
  
  
    She weighs nothing, nothing at all, Slit's done this with Pups who over-correct in lancer training just like this, who forget to brace and pull back, Pups who weighed a lot more, but it's still an effort to twist and reach and hold on and balance and curl his arm around her spitting, writhing, shining glory, and tumble her back into her seat through the window-space, snap at her,  
  
  
    “Don't DO that!”  
  
  
    She's clinging to his good arm with all Her meagre strength, pinning it between Herself and the door, right up in his face, snarling like She's going to take a strip off him wherever She can get to -   
  
  
    Slit can hear Furiosa shout,  
  
  
    “Fool, stop the Rig!”  
  
  
    The clamour-concern of the Shinies who grab at Her with soft, frightened hands.  
  
  
    It's all a ringing in his ears like the end of a great explosion, because She's demanding, howling, and so, so close, there's nowhere to go to not hurt her -   
  
  
    “You let go, you stupid, STUPID bastard schlanger - I told you - I TOLD YOU to hold on, and you let go - ”  
  
  
    “Not stupid - ” Slit spits back, trying to wrestle his arm back from under Her but unable to get the angle right so he doesn't end up hurting Her if She won't let go, and She won't -   
  
  
    “Wasn't falling - I'm a lancer, I told YOU - ”  
  
  
    “Toast, Toast - ” the oil-slick tiny-Shiny is sobbing -   
  
  
    “Hey - HEY!” Furiosa roars, her metal hand suddenly shoving past Slit's cheek and between his face and Hers -   
  
  
    The Rig hasn't stopped, but Furiosa's twisted into the back of the cabin so she can snarl at both of them - not just Slit -   
  
  
    “Leave each other alone!” Furiosa orders, and Slit is wholly focused on the Imperatraitor's eyes, but - she's not looking at him, she's talking to -   
  
  
    “Toast! Let him go! He knows what he's doing - if you can't handle it, move to the other side!”  
  
  
    Furiosa is barking at the Shiny - like giving orders, except not - it's a suggestion that isn't one - not a threat, it's -   
  
  
    The enraged Shiny doesn't shift gears easy. Her teeth grind and She digs her fingers in for more of Slit's blood, slamming his arm against the door even harder even though Slit's not resisting at all anymore now that Furiosa's close enough to pike him right in the neck - no one is that stupid -   
  
  
    “Tell him,” the blood-crazy Treasure growls to make Slit's skin skitter-sneak like a crawly on loose sand, right in Furiosa's face,  
  
  
    “To keep his arm here and hold on right. We won't have a problem.”  
  
  
    Furiosa's face moves the way it does when she's tired-sick of telling over-eager Pups to stop crawling into and under and all over the Rig, like it does right before she starts yelling and swatting at them with a grease-rag to get them away.  
  
  
    “War Boy,” Furiosa grates, sitting back a little and taking her arm away,  
  
  
    “Do as she says. You two touch each other again, I'm moving you both.”  
  
  
    Slit nods, sharp, so she can tell he understands. No more chances. No point telling Furiosa that the Shiny touched Slit first and he was just moving so She wouldn't and that made this kami-crazy Shiny-choker want to kill both of them by jumping out of the Rig to tear at him because this Treasure thinks Slit's stupid enough to kill himself over nothing instead of dying right instead of the Shinies like he said he meant to now and She doesn't Know to give Slit an order that doesn't make a problem because how can he have his arm there and hold on like She wants because She doesn't trust him not to fall like a rusty smeg AND not be touching her if She decides to lean all over it like She was doing?  
  
  
    Slit's head hurts and his arm stings and he wishes Furiosa would move him just so he doesn't have to be next to the Shiny who both wants him dead and doesn't want him to fall-dead, but there's no point telling Furiosa anything because Slit understands that however crazy this Shiny is, She is More Important than Slit, so what he thinks and wants isn't Important at all even if what She Thinks and Wants is Pup-mistakes and order-confusions because She doesn't know that good lancers don't fall if they still got feet under them and a solid rail for balancing.  
  
  
    Furiosa settles back into her seat, growling to herself, thundering all quiet, making Slit stiff and careful.  
  
  
    The Treasure seems to want what Slit wants, though, wants them both to be moved far away, because She immediately disobeys Furiosa and puts Herself as close up against Slit's arm as She can.  
  
  
    She's overheated like an engine run too hard, and they slick-stick together where She's made him bleed.  
  
  
    Slit doesn't move, because he can't, but he watches the crazy Treasure stare Her challenge right up at Furiosa, who just sighs and ignores that she's been disobeyed. Just... ignores that what she's Stolen is doing just what she said not to do.  
  
  
    “Don't. Move,” hisses the Treasure digging all her fingers into Slit's arm, pressing Herself where She tore him, right there where his insides are a little more outside from Her pointy fingers, eyes on fire now, not cold or dead anymore. Her skin is humming, all revved up, nowhere to go, angry and wild.  
  
  
    Slit doesn't think a Treasure like Her would ever have been somewhere like the pits, but he yields like She has, anyway, because She won, tiny and crazy and More Important than him. Slit bends his head away so She can see he knows, and hopes She does.  
  
  
    She winds the soft white thing around her head and neck again, leans Her cheek on his arm like it'll keep him there better even though he isn't moving at all, and breathes.  
  
  
    The other two Shinies resettle into each other, oil-slick whining into living-cloud skin, turned away.  
  
  
    This crazy Shiny makes Pup mistakes, but she Knows bullets and She can choke Slit easy just leaning on his arm. He understands why She is maybe even More Important than Furiosa, doesn't Obey. Is that what the red-wired Shiny meant when she said 'Not Things'? Better than Things?  
  
  
    Can't be. She said 'We' and 'Not Even You', meaning Slit. Slit is not More Important like they are.  
  
  
    Slit thinks maybe that's what makes soft living dangerous, what gives them Time to burn so brightly. They don't Know all the things that half-lives Know - all the things that hurt.

 

 

 


	8. Eighth Installment

 

  
  
    Slit's head is pounding to the rhythm of Her heart beating through Her skin.  
  
  
    There's no ignoring it anymore - nowhere to go because She said Don't Move - and there's nothing out here to focus on that isn't the soothing hush-roar of the Rig and Her skin on his.  
  
  
    He's not blood-stuck to Her now She's not clinging so fiercely, fingers not as digging-deep as before, and the Rig moves too much under-around them all not to shift Her about and off him some unless She clings hard, and She isn't, hasn't for a while, but She said Don't Move so he can't, even though now She's clinging like the other two Shinies are clinging - like Pups run too wild too long cling together in clumps when they start stalling like being so tired could hurt less if they're close enough.  
  
  
    Slit doesn't even remember being young enough to do that, even in his sleep, and he's not that old, really, but he still doesn't remember Piling On like the Shinies do, doesn't Know what it feels like to do anymore.  
  
  
    Maybe like this, he thinks - except not, because this isn't supposed to happen and it only Is because She said Don't Move and Piled On to Slit like the other two Shinies are doing with each other, Slit didn't want this, doesn't need to be skin-close like they seem to need all the time, and Slit doesn't like that She's making him because this still isn't like it would be with other Boys, it's not like it'd be if Slit could remember doing it as a Pup who needs it too.  
  
  
    This feels like She's making him part of how Soft they are because She can, and Slit doesn't know why She would do that - Pile On to Slit instead of with the other Shinies - except it must be because She still doesn't trust him not to fall even though he won't. She's keeping him close so She'll know if he does, must be.  
  
  
    He doesn't understand why She won't trust him not to die mediocre - She talked like She Knew Better but that can't be right if She's Piled On to keep him where She put him - and Slit can't think of a more mediocre death than toppling off a lancer's perch for no reason while chained to it and riding a Quiet Road.  
  
  
    Furiosa tried to tell Her too, but it's like She doesn't want to Know it proper, and Slit can't see why that should be when She's proved Herself smart.  
  
  
    Slit doesn't Understand Her at all, and he doesn't like it. She acts like a Pup - they all do - and it makes Slit feel like he's back in training, learning how to balance on a moving Rig, the way She and the Shinies are In Charge but don't Know how to Steer.  
  
  
    It makes him head-sick, thinking about it, but there's nothing else to do except count Her breathing rhythm hitting his half-closed skin and try not to think.  
  
  
    - She's not breathing like before -   
  
  
    One of Her hands - She's -   
  
  
    “Did you do this?” She asks, soft-rough, fingers on the scars on his lower arm, the Promise he made, and She's not looking at Slit, She's looking at the picture Her fingers are drawing on him, so he can look at Her and tell Her,  
  
  
    “Yes.”  
  
  
    “Is this you?” She asks, like it's Bad and it Hurts, like it tastes wrong in Her mouth, running Her fingers over scar-Slit, and the Sun, and She looks at him like he's a traitor, right at him, and demands,  
  
  
    “This is what you want?”  
  
  
    “Yes,” he tells Her, quiet and simple, and She puts Her whole hand over the scar even though it's too small to cover all of it, does it as tight as She can, Slit thinks, tight enough it almost hurts, and She hisses,  
  
  
    “It's a waste.”  
  
  
    “What's - ” Slit tries, confused, but She leans in too close again and stares him down, tells him harsh,  
  
  
    “Killing yourself - hurting yourself like that. It's a waste.”  
  
  
    Slit has no Words but She doesn't seem to want them because She goes on, eyes shining angry, voice wobble-sad,  
  
  
    “You said Furiosa wasted Angharad, and that's not true. Angharad died to save us - so we could be free. It was her choice. Angharad had scars, too, and they were her choice, because she was not a thing. She Belonged to herself. We all Belong to ourselves. We are not Things, War Boy. We have choices - Angharad's scars were her choice, her death was her choice. Yours are an old Bastard's lie, and your Death won't matter to him. All Joe cares about is himself.”  
  
  
    She's fierce and angry and She's cold and hard inside, where the water comes from, in Her eyes and Her voice, and She's trembling hot against him on the outside and She's so sure, She Knows this Deep, it's all over Her, and She's all over him -   
  
  
    “That's not - you don't Know!” Slit growls, because She can't, how would She, it's not True, She needs to stop,  
  
  
    “You're Full-Life, you don't Know about Dying, you're not going to Valhalla!”  
  
  
   “Neither are you - no one is, because it's not Real! He's been lying to all of you - he's just a filthy old liar!”  
  
  
    Furiosa shouts from the front, a warning, but Slit has no room to hear it, trying too hard not to hear the crazy Treasure rave heretical -  
  
  
    “No - ” Slit shakes his head violently, eyes shutting out Her fire, but She burns brighter, blood-red in his head like trying to shut out the Sun -   
  
  
    “You don't Belong to him - he's no better than you,” She cries, like bits of Her are broken other than Her mind,  
  
  
    “He breathes clean air and eats the best food but he's sicker than you, and he calls you half-life so you'll want to die for him! You're nothing but battle-fodder to him!”  
  
  
    “No - no - no - ”  
  
  
    “You said you don't have a choice but you do now!” She is urgent, unrelenting, running him down in Her madness,  
  
  
    “You can be Better - you Deserve Better! Your Death should Belong to you!”  
  
  
    It's like She's choking him from the inside out, like drowning in sand, and his eyes burn and his throat feels torn, and She doesn't Know anything, it's not True, She's mad and he won't listen, he's not listening -   
  
  
    “Slit, look at me!”  
  
  
    She's ordering, By Name, but he won't do it, She can't make him -   
  
  
    She grabs him - the mess below his ear - the side of his neck where he's sickest - his eyes open even though he doesn't want to see Her -   
  
  
    “Slit, we're not going back - we are not Things! He doesn't Own us!”  
  
  
    “He'll catch you - ” he forces out between clenched teeth,  
  
  
    “You can't run - he'll catch you - ”  
  
  
    “If we can't be Free, we'd rather be Dead!” She blazes, blinding, and it's not Right -   
  
  
    “No - no - no!” Slit howls, tearing himself free where She's snagged him - it's not Right for Her to Touch him it's not Right for Her to say these things - She's crazy -   
  
  
    “You're Treasures - you're Life - you have to go Back, you can't Die out here - you don't Know anything - ”  
  
  
    “He killed the World and he was killing us - he killed Angharad when she was carrying Life - YOU don't know - ” She's screaming now, terrifying, like her Fury could kill him, Her face wet with glory -   
  
  
    “YOU DON'T KNOW HOW HE HURT US - he doesn't deserve your Life - he doesn't deserve your Death - your choices should be yours, Slit - ”  
  
  
    “YOU'RE WRONG! SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP - YOU DON'T KNOW!”  
  
  
    Furiosa's voice thunders, Shiny voices wailing fright, and Her voice shrieking terrible lies, they all batter at him like the World ending and if it wasn't Killed before it's Killed Dead now alright, and Slit howls and howls and twists away from where She's grabbing him, not Listening, not Hearing, not Looking, she's Crazy -  
  
  
    “TOAST! BOTH OF YOU STOP IT NOW! LEAVE HIM - ”  
  
  
    “Toast stop it, please - ”  
  
  
    “What's going on, what's - Toast what are you doing!”  
  
  
    “HE HAS TO KNOW - HE HAS TO BE TOLD - HE'S CARVED THAT FILTH'S LIES INTO HIS SKIN IT'S NOT RIGHT - IT'S NOT - ”  
  
  
    “TOAST, STOP!”  
  
  
    “Toast, NO! Come here - come here, it's alright, stop, it's not his fault - ”  
  
  
    She lets go sudden-sharp, like She's been pulled off, and Slit sees the red-wired Shiny pulling Her, hears the way Her crying breaks, and he ducks out of range of Furiosa, pulls his arm down where none of them can reach him, crouches as low as he can on the perch and flattens himself against the metal and he can hear, he can hear -   
  
  
    “ - just like Angharad - they're all ruined - ”  
  
  
    “ - you can't make them right, you can't force them - ”  
  
  
    “ - told you not to touch him!”  
  
  
    “ - schlanger poisoned them all on the vine - worse than what's under their skin - ”  
  
  
    “ - won't understand like that, it's all they know!”  
  
  
    “Capable, switch places with Toast - ” Furiosa shouts, storm-clouds and war-drums, commanding over the bitter-cracked sobbing, the angry-whispered softnesses,  
  
  
    “I don't want her anywhere near him!”  
  
  
    “It's not his fault!” Slit hears the red-wired Shiny defend him, like she was there to know, like she Cares, but Slit already knows it won't matter to Furiosa.  
  
  
    Like he doesn't matter, doesn't matter at all, She said so, She sounded so sure -   
  
  
    She's crazy. Slit shudders all over and slams his head into the side of the Rig to make it stick - She's crazy, She's crazy, She doesn't Know anything -   
  
  
    “I know,” Furiosa thunders, deeper, fiercer than the motion of the Rig in Slit's bones, tired like Death, and Slit whines into the metal scraping against his face,  
  
  
    “No one's blaming him. He's just not ready.”  
  
  
    Furiosa sounds like she Believes the crazy Treasure - like Slit's the one who doesn't Know right.  
  
  
    For the first time since she and the Blood Bag chained him to the Rig, Slit thinks he could fall.  
  


 

 


	9. Ninth Installment

  
  
  
    Pain is something every War Boy knows intimately. Better than grease and gears, better than hot metal, is the pain.  
  
  
    Being a proper War Boy means that there is always pain somewhere - if there isn't you're either mediocre or on your way out soft.  
  
  
    Slit isn't sure he remembers a time before pain. In the same way that he can't recall what Piling On as a Pup was like, he can't recall there ever being a time where something didn't hurt, but unlike that, Slit doesn't think there ever was such a time, whereas he Knows he was once a Pup who slept in a Pile with his Brothers.  
  
  
    It doesn't matter that he can't remember it, or that trying to just makes his head hurt and makes him think of being grown in the bunks instead because that's the closest he has, all that's left anymore. It's like trying to remember if there ever was anything before the scars - if he was ever smooth and soft like the Shinies are, like a new Pup - it hurts and there's nothing there but it doesn't matter.  
  
  
    Something has always hurt, as far back as he has Memories, there's been pain.  
  
  
    It's what he knows.  
  
  
    It's not all the same - there's a difference between the red-sharp sting of sand-scrapes and the burning wet-heat tear that was his face being split - but it's always there. That's how Slit knows there's pain, and there's Pain.  
  
  
    Slit felt pain when his face was ruined, when his side was slashed deep and deadly, and it almost killed him both times, but that wasn't like the Pain of knowing Nux died un-Witnessed because Slit was kicked off their Rig by the same feral who probably killed Nux, and it wasn't like the Pain he's feeling now.  
  
  
    Because Slit isn't Sure anymore.  
  
  
    The old brand on his back aches the more the Shiny-choker's Words repeat in his head, but it doesn't help to know she's crazy because Slit doesn't Know it and he's not Sure.  
  
  
    He's always been Sure - like the pain, it's always just been there.  
  
  
    The pain of his back and arms and shoulders from building himself into the best lancer he could be was all worth it because he was Sure it was for a reason, there was a Purpose to it, to his half-life - it was all for the glory of the Immortan, to help make certain Slit went out chrome and Witnessed when his time came. When his Time runs out.  
  
  
    That's what the Promise on his arm is for. To remind himself.  
  
  
    The pain of his face and his side, recovering after, that was all worth it too, because Slit was Sure those Deaths were too mediocre for him, that he was meant for an end far more chrome. He didn't die, because he wasn't awaited.  
  
  
    Slit isn't Sure anymore, though, and it Hurts - Hurts worse than the jiggle-jolt throb of his head riding rough on a hard Road, worse than being stitched back together after being torn up, worse than having bits reattached. It's a different hurt - nothing's bleeding, nothing's come off - but it's worse somehow because he just isn't Sure what it's for.  
  
  
    Slit isn't Sure what he's for, not anymore.  
  
  
    He's not Sure that the crazy Shiny-choker is crazy at all even though she must be, not Sure because no one said anything against it, no one - not even Furiosa.  
  
  
    That Hurts worst of all.  
  
  
    Having an arm torn out doesn't hurt as badly as not Knowing Sure.  
  
  
    It's chewing on his insides so he feels sick to death with it, but no matter what he thinks around it, he's not Sure and this isn't a Pain he can handle.  
  
  
    Slit is not weak and he's not soft, but if he wasn't biting his tongue he'd be screaming with this - Going Under is almost tempting if it wasn't so mediocre Slit feels the shame just as badly as the chewing-pain even thinking it.  
  
  
    She can't Know, he tells himself, pushing his face into the metal of the Rig, taking deep breaths, the air everything he's ever known, metal and fuel and dust, steadying him - she can't Know about Valhalla, about dying -   
  
  
    Maybe full-life breeders don't go to Valhalla, maybe they're not awaited, maybe that's what she -   
  
  
    She said it wasn't Real, though, said no one was -   
  
  
    But if she doesn't know about it - because it's not useful for breeders to wish for Valhalla when they're not awaited?  
  
  
    Maybe it would just hurt them, knowing all about it when they're not going - maybe they've been spared that out of mercy, and that's why she's angry, says it's not Real -   
  
  
    He can't be Sure.  
  
  
    They'll die out here, he thinks with a shiver. Wasted. Wasted in the Waste - that's why it's called that, Slit's been taught. It kills everything if you stay too long. And they want that... they said, they want to die out here, giving their precious full lives to the sand and the dirt and the sun and all the nothing that chokes you in this place...  
  
  
    If they don't go back, they'll all die. And when they die, if they're not awaited in Valhalla, are they awaited anywhere?  
  
  
    Slit thinks surely, surely the Immortan would carry Treasures to Valhalla if they died for him - what better place, what more fitting, shinier end for such living-chrome beings than that?  
  
  
    They'd belong there, in golden halls, forever Lifted far, far above everything - even above the greatest of the heroes, they'd belong...  
  
  
    Is that why they'd rather die here like wretched things, because the gates are closed to them?  
  
  
    It must be a mistake, must be -  
  
  
    But she said - she said - heresy, treason, she said -   
  
  
    Slit no better than the Immortan, it's madness, it's -   
  
  
    No, that's not what she - she said the Immortan wasn't any better than Slit, and Slit could be Better, that Slit Deserved Better, and... That's not the same. It's still madness, still lies, but it's not the same at all...  
  
  
    There isn't a Better. There isn't a choice. Not for Slit.  
  
  
   It's a mistake, just like their running - they're going back, all of 'em, not a hand laid -   
  
  
    She said He hurt them - his brain screams behind his eyes and he bites down harder - why would He Hurt them, that doesn't - that can't be - they're Treasure - they're Precious - He said - why would anyone Hurt them - scratch chrome -  
  
  
    His mouth is bleeding and he swallows past the metal and suddenly he's afraid, has to stretch up and be Sure they're still safe, doesn't see any of them close to the door -   
  
  
    It's dark now - the sky's thick and heavy. There's a light inside the Rig. Hot-wire hair is sparking with it, closest to him but not close enough for touching, so it's safe, and she looks at him. Sad. Soft.  
  
  
    It hurts.  
  
  
    They're all still safe, in a Pile, Shining away lovelier than the little light they've lit, warmer somehow.  
  
  
    The Party will be able to see them true, now, in this, before they all go too far...  
  
  
    The Rig isn't rumbling like it should be.  
  
  
    The air is wet.  
  
  
    Something's sour other than the blood in Slit's mouth.  
  


 

 


End file.
